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PMP exam prep: PMP practice exam, PMP sample questions and practice questions for the new July 2026 exam

If you started studying before this summer, the most important thing to know is that the exam you prepared for is no longer the exam you will sit. PMI retired the old content outline on July 8, 2026. The domain weightings moved, the time limit moved, the question types changed, and a whole section built around case studies now sits at the front of the exam. Most of the PMP material currently in circulation, including a lot of it published in 2026, still describes the old format.

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  • Weighted the way the exam is now: 41% Process, 33% People, 26% Business Environment
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The PMP, or Project Management Professional, is PMI's flagship project management certification, and the exam changed substantially on July 9, 2026. The current exam is 180 questions: 170 scored plus 10 unscored pretest items, with 240 minutes to finish and two 10-minute breaks. The three domains are now weighted People 33%, Process 41% and Business Environment 26%. That last figure is the headline change, because Business Environment was 8% before July 2026, so it went from roughly 14 scored questions to roughly 44. Predictive approaches now account for about 40% of items and the remaining 60% is split between adaptive/agile and hybrid. PMI publishes no numeric passing score and no pass rate. Aspirants.ai generates unlimited PMP practice questions mapped to the July 2026 content outline, explains every answer choice, and costs from $9 a month.

Last updated August 2026

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Example PMP exam questions with answers and explanations

Eight PMP sample questions written against the July 2026 content outline and weighted the way the exam now is, including the expanded Business Environment domain. Read every rationale, including why the wrong answers are wrong.

Question 1 · Business Environment

Midway through a hybrid project, new data privacy regulation takes effect in the region where the product will launch. The project manager confirms the product as designed would not comply. What should the project manager do first?

  1. A. Continue to the next release and address compliance in a later phase
  2. B. Assess the impact of the regulation on the project and raise it through the established change and governance process
  3. C. Immediately redesign the affected features to meet the new requirement
  4. D. Escalate to the legal department and pause all project work until they respond
Show the answer and explanation

B. Assess the impact of the regulation on the project and raise it through the established change and governance process

Confirming compliance requirements is an explicit Business Environment task, and the sequence PMI expects is assess, then route through governance. Option C jumps to executing a change before its impact is understood or approved, which is the classic unauthorized-change trap. Option A knowingly ships a non-compliant product, which is never acceptable regardless of schedule pressure. Option D over-corrects: legal input is likely needed, but halting all project work when only some features are affected is a disproportionate response the project manager has not been given cause to take. Compliance questions like this one carry far more weight than they used to, because Business Environment moved from 8% of the exam to 26% in July 2026.

Question 2 · Business Environment

A project delivered every scope item on time and within budget, but twelve months later the organization reports that the expected cost savings never materialized. Which of the following best explains the gap?

  1. A. The project was poorly managed despite the schedule and cost results
  2. B. The benefits were realized but measured incorrectly
  3. C. Project success was measured by delivery outputs rather than by business value outcomes
  4. D. The benefits management plan should have been owned by the project manager through the twelve months
Show the answer and explanation

C. Project success was measured by delivery outputs rather than by business value outcomes

This is the distinction the current outline pushes hardest: delivering on time and on budget describes outputs, while benefits describe outcomes, and the two can diverge completely. A project can be flawlessly executed and still fail to produce value if the underlying business case was wrong or the organization never adopted the deliverable. Option A does not follow, since the delivery evidence points the other way. Option B invents a measurement error the scenario does not support. Option D is the tempting wrong answer: benefits realization commonly extends well past project closure and typically transfers to an operational or portfolio owner, so holding the project manager accountable for twelve months of post-delivery benefits misstates the usual accountability.

Question 3 · Process

An agile team has completed six sprints with velocities of 22, 26, 24, 30, 25 and 27 story points. There are 190 points remaining in the backlog. Using average velocity, approximately how many additional sprints are required?

  1. A. 6 sprints
  2. B. 7 sprints
  3. C. 8 sprints
  4. D. 9 sprints
Show the answer and explanation

C. 8 sprints

Add the six velocities: 22 plus 26 plus 24 plus 30 plus 25 plus 27 equals 154. Divided by six sprints the average velocity is roughly 25.67 points per sprint. Dividing the 190 remaining points by 25.67 gives about 7.4 sprints, and because you cannot deliver a partial sprint you round up to 8. Option B is what you get if you truncate 7.4 instead of rounding up, which is the most common error on this question type. Option A comes from dividing by the highest observed velocity of 30, an optimistic forecast that ignores the team's actual range. Note that averaging is a reasonable forecasting method here precisely because the velocities are stable; with a wildly erratic series a range forecast would be the better answer.

Question 4 · Process

A risk was identified with a 30% probability of occurring and an estimated impact of $80,000. The project manager arranges for a third party to assume responsibility for the risk in exchange for a fixed fee. Which risk response strategy is this?

  1. A. Mitigate
  2. B. Avoid
  3. C. Transfer
  4. D. Accept
Show the answer and explanation

C. Transfer

Shifting the ownership and financial consequence of a threat to a third party, usually through insurance, a warranty, a performance bond or a fixed-price contract clause, is transfer by definition. The risk still exists and can still occur; only the liability has moved, which is why transfer almost always carries a premium such as the fixed fee described here. Mitigate would mean acting to reduce the probability or the impact, which nothing in the scenario does. Avoid would mean eliminating the threat entirely, typically by changing the plan so the risk cannot occur. Accept would mean taking no action beyond perhaps setting a contingency reserve. The expected monetary value of $24,000, being 30% of $80,000, is what a project manager would compare against the fee to judge whether the transfer is worth buying.

Question 5 · Process

A stakeholder asks the project manager to add a small feature that will not affect cost or schedule. The project is running under a predictive approach with an approved scope baseline. What should the project manager do?

  1. A. Add the feature, since there is no cost or schedule impact
  2. B. Refuse the request because the scope baseline is approved
  3. C. Submit a change request so the change can be evaluated and approved or rejected
  4. D. Add the feature and record it in the lessons learned register
Show the answer and explanation

C. Submit a change request so the change can be evaluated and approved or rejected

Under a predictive approach any change to an approved baseline goes through integrated change control, and that holds even when the requester believes the change is free. The judgement that a change has no cost or schedule impact is itself an assessment that belongs to the change control process rather than to the project manager acting alone, and small unlogged additions are precisely how scope creep accumulates. Option A is the scope creep answer. Option B is wrong in the opposite direction: the project manager does not simply refuse legitimate stakeholder requests, and the baseline exists to be changed in a controlled way rather than to be treated as immovable. Option D compounds the error by making an unauthorized change and then filing it in the wrong register.

Question 6 · People

Two senior team members disagree sharply about a technical approach and the dispute is slowing the team down. What should the project manager do first?

  1. A. Make the technical decision so the team can move forward
  2. B. Escalate the disagreement to the sponsor
  3. C. Bring the two together to understand each position and work toward a solution both can support
  4. D. Assign the two members to separate workstreams so they no longer need to agree
Show the answer and explanation

C. Bring the two together to understand each position and work toward a solution both can support

PMI consistently favors collaborate and problem solve as the first conflict resolution approach, because it addresses the underlying disagreement and produces a solution the parties actually own. Two senior engineers arguing about a technical approach usually means both have real information, and a resolution that incorporates both is generally better than either position alone. Option A is the project manager deciding a technical matter that the experts are better placed to settle, and it leaves the losing party unconvinced. Option B escalates before any attempt at resolution, which is premature and undermines the project manager's credibility. Option D is avoidance dressed up as an organizational fix: it removes the friction without resolving anything, and the unresolved technical question will resurface at integration.

Question 7 · People

During a retrospective, an agile team says they cannot finish work because another department keeps missing dependency handoffs. What is the project manager's most appropriate action as a servant leader?

  1. A. Instruct the team to reduce their sprint commitment to match what the dependency allows
  2. B. Work with the other department to remove the impediment blocking the team
  3. C. Add the missed handoffs to the risk register and continue monitoring
  4. D. Report the other department's performance to the sponsor
Show the answer and explanation

B. Work with the other department to remove the impediment blocking the team

Removing impediments and shielding the team from external obstacles is the core of servant leadership, and an unreliable cross-department dependency is exactly the kind of blocker a team cannot clear on its own. Option A treats a solvable external problem as a fixed constraint and quietly lowers the team's output to accommodate it. Option C is passive: logging a known, recurring, currently active problem as a risk to monitor confuses an issue that is already happening with a risk that might. Option D reaches for the sponsor before the project manager has attempted the direct, peer-level resolution that is squarely within their own remit, and framing it as a performance report about another department damages the working relationship the team depends on.

Question 8 · People

A project manager takes over a team whose members are newly assembled, polite with each other, and asking a lot of questions about roles and objectives. Which stage of team development is this, and what does the team most need?

  1. A. Storming, and the team needs conflict resolution
  2. B. Forming, and the team needs clear direction on roles and goals
  3. C. Norming, and the team needs the project manager to step back
  4. D. Performing, and the team needs delegated autonomy
Show the answer and explanation

B. Forming, and the team needs clear direction on roles and goals

The described behaviors map to forming in the Tuckman model: members are new to each other, interactions are cautious and courteous, and uncertainty centers on who does what and what the team is for. The leadership response that fits is directive, meaning explicit role definition, clear objectives and established working agreements. Storming would show open disagreement and challenges to authority, none of which appears here, so option A misreads politeness as harmony that has already been tested. Option C describes a team that has already worked through its conflicts and settled into shared norms, which a newly assembled group has not. Option D is the most damaging misdiagnosis, because delegating autonomy to a team that does not yet know its roles produces drift rather than performance.

These eight are a sample. Inside Aspirants.ai you can generate unlimited PMP practice questions across all three domains, with the same depth of explanation on every answer choice.

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What the PMP exam looks like from July 2026

PMI's current Examination Content Outline is specific about the format, and it is worth reading the numbers carefully because they all moved. The exam is 180 questions in total, of which 170 are scored and 10 are unscored pretest items that PMI uses to trial future content. You are not told which ten. The allotted time is 240 minutes, a full four hours, and there are two 10-minute breaks. Where those breaks fall matters more than candidates expect: the first comes after the case-study section and the second falls roughly midway through the independent question portion. PMI warns that once you review your responses and start a break, you cannot return to the questions from the previous section. That is a one-way door, so the review pass before each break is the only review pass you get. The optional tutorial at the start and the survey at the end are not counted against your 240 minutes.

  • 180 questions in total: 170 scored plus 10 unscored pretest items
  • 240 minutes, up from 230 on the previous exam
  • Two 10-minute breaks, the first after the case-study section
  • Starting a break locks the previous section permanently

What changed on July 9, 2026, and what it means for your study plan

The single biggest change is the reweighting of Business Environment. On the old outline it was 8% of the exam, which on 175 scored questions worked out to about 14 items, and most candidates treated it as a rounding error they could safely underprepare. It is now 26%, which on 170 scored questions is about 44 items. That is roughly three times as many questions, drawn from organizational strategy, governance, compliance and the measurement of business value. People fell from 42% to 33% and Process fell from 50% to 41%, so both are still substantial but neither carries what it used to. The delivery-approach mix moved as well. PMI states that approximately 40% of items represent predictive project management approaches, with the remaining 60% divided between adaptive/agile and hybrid. On the previous exam that split was roughly even. If your study plan came from a course built before this summer, it is over-invested in predictive process mechanics and badly under-invested in the domain that grew the most.

  • Business Environment: 8% to 26%, roughly 14 questions to roughly 44
  • People: 42% to 33%. Process: 50% to 41%
  • Predictive approaches drop to about 40% of items
  • Adaptive/agile and hybrid together now make up about 60%

The new question types, and which ones you will not see online

PMI added two question types to the July 2026 exam and kept several others. Case or Scenario questions are new: you are given a detailed situation, sometimes with charts or graphs, describing a business, a project or a decision-making process, and then answer a series of questions off that single body of information. These are what the dedicated case-study section at the front of the exam is built from, and they reward reading the whole scenario before touching the first question. Graphic-Based questions are also new and require you to interpret a chart, graph, diagram or image and answer from it. Alongside those you will still see multiple-choice single response, multiple-response items with more than one correct answer, enhanced matching with drag-and-drop, and point-and-click hotspot items. One practical detail that rarely gets mentioned: enhanced matching and point and click are available only on the center-based computer test. If you sit the exam through online proctoring you will not encounter them, while case, scenario, graphic-based, single-response and multiple-response questions appear on all modalities.

  • Case or Scenario questions are new and drive the case-study section
  • Graphic-Based questions are new and appear on all modalities
  • Enhanced matching and point and click are center-based testing only
  • Multiple-response items have more than one correct answer and no partial credit guarantee

PMP exam requirements: four eligibility paths and the 35 training hours

The eligibility ladder now has four rungs, not the two that most published summaries still describe. With upper-secondary education, meaning a high school diploma or a recognized secondary equivalency, you need a minimum of 60 months of non-overlapping experience leading projects. With a recognized associate-level, higher-certificate or advanced technical qualification, the requirement drops to 48 months. With a bachelor's degree or higher it is 36 months. And with a bachelor's or postgraduate degree from a program accredited by PMI's Global Accreditation Center, it is 24 months. All of that experience has to have been accrued within the last 10 years and has to be experience leading and directing projects in a professional setting. School projects, academic research, planning personal events and home improvement do not count. On top of the experience, every candidate needs at least 35 hours of commercial project management training aligned to the content outline. There is a real waiver here that a lot of sites get wrong: if you hold an active CAPM certification and meet the education and experience requirements, the 35-hour documentation requirement is waived outright, and coursework from a GAC-accredited degree program can also count toward it. Be clear about one limit, though. PMI states that books and practice exams alone will not be accepted as eligible commercial training. Practice questions, including ours, are for passing the exam. They do not satisfy the 35-hour requirement, and you should plan a separate course for that.

  • Secondary education: 60 months leading projects. Associate level: 48 months
  • Bachelor's degree: 36 months. GAC-accredited degree: 24 months
  • All experience must fall within the last 10 years
  • An active CAPM waives the 35 training hours entirely

How the PMP is scored, and why nobody can quote you a real pass rate

PMI does not publish a numeric passing score for the PMP, and it has not done so for many years. There is no percentage you can point at and no official raw number of correct answers that guarantees a pass. Scores are set through a psychometric process that accounts for the calibrated difficulty of the particular questions you received, so two candidates answering the same number of items correctly can get different results if one saw a harder form. Your score report gives an overall pass or fail plus a performance rating in each of the three domains: Above Target, Target, Below Target, or Needs Improvement. Those domain ratings are diagnostic. They tell you where to concentrate if you have to sit the exam again, and they are the reason a failed attempt is still useful information. Because PMI publishes neither a passing score nor candidate volumes, every PMP pass rate you find quoted comes from a training provider's own students or from survey data, not from PMI. Treat those numbers as marketing rather than statistics. The practical target most successful candidates use is consistently scoring above 75% on realistic practice questions before booking.

  • PMI publishes no numeric passing score and no official pass rate
  • Four domain ratings: Above Target, Target, Below Target, Needs Improvement
  • Difficulty-calibrated scoring means raw counts are not comparable
  • Any quoted PMP pass rate is provider data, not PMI data

Retakes, fees and how long to study

You may sit the exam up to three times within your one-year eligibility period. Exhaust all three and you have to wait a full year from the date of the last attempt before reapplying, although you are free to pursue a different PMI certification during that year. If the eligibility year simply runs out without you passing, even if you never used all three attempts, you reapply, but in that case there is no waiting period. On cost, PMI no longer prints a flat global fee in its handbook and instead prices by membership status and region. In the United States as of August 2026 the exam is widely listed at $405 for PMI members and $555 for non-members, with retakes inside your eligibility period at $275 and $375. Since PMI membership itself is about $139 a year plus a $10 application fee, joining first is roughly break-even on the first attempt and clearly cheaper if you ever retake. PMI does document one fee directly: a hand rescore, available only if your exam was delivered on paper rather than by computer, costs $45. On study time, candidates typically report 8 to 12 weeks at 10 to 15 hours a week, though the July 2026 change means anyone reusing older material should add time specifically for Business Environment.

  • Three attempts per one-year eligibility period, then a one-year wait
  • An expired eligibility year means reapplying but no waiting period
  • US listing as of August 2026: $405 member, $555 non-member
  • Budget extra time for Business Environment if your material predates July 2026

Compare the options

The PMP exam before and after July 9, 2026

The previous content outline alongside the one in force now, on PMI-published specifications. If your study material matches the left column, it is out of date.

Before July 9, 2026 From July 9, 2026
Total questions 180 180
Scored questions 175 170
Unscored pretest items 5 10
Time limit 230 minutes 240 minutes
Breaks Two 10-minute breaks Two 10-minute breaks, first after the case-study section
People domain 42% (about 74 questions) 33% (about 56 questions)
Process domain 50% (about 88 questions) 41% (about 70 questions)
Business Environment domain 8% (about 14 questions) 26% (about 44 questions)
Predictive approaches About 50% of items About 40% of items
Adaptive/agile and hybrid About 50% of items About 60% of items
Case study section None Yes, at the front of the exam
Graphic-based questions No Yes, on all modalities

Specifications from PMI's Project Management Professional Examination Content Outline, July 2026, and the outline it replaced. Question counts by domain are calculated from the published percentages applied to the scored question total and are approximate, since PMI publishes weightings rather than fixed counts per form.

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Honest answers

PMP exam prep, answered straight.

The PMP exam has 180 questions in total: 170 scored questions plus 10 unscored pretest items that PMI uses to trial future content. You are not told which ten are unscored, so treat every question as if it counts. This changed in July 2026, when the scored total dropped from 175 and the pretest count rose from 5, so older study guides describing 175 scored questions are out of date.

The PMP exam is 240 minutes, or four hours, with two 10-minute breaks. The first break falls after the case-study section and the second roughly midway through the independent questions. The previous exam allowed 230 minutes. The optional tutorial before the exam and the survey afterward are not counted against your four hours.

PMI launched a new Examination Content Outline on July 9, 2026. Business Environment rose from 8% to 26% of the exam, People fell from 42% to 33% and Process fell from 50% to 41%. The time limit moved from 230 to 240 minutes, scored questions from 175 to 170, and predictive approaches dropped from about half of items to about 40%. Case-study and graphic-based question types were added.

PMI does not publish a numeric passing score for the PMP and has not for many years. Scoring accounts for the calibrated difficulty of the specific questions you received, so no fixed number of correct answers guarantees a pass. Your report shows an overall result plus a rating in each domain: Above Target, Target, Below Target or Needs Improvement. Most candidates aim for above 75% on realistic practice questions.

There is no official PMP pass rate. PMI publishes neither a passing score nor candidate volumes for the exam, so no verifiable figure exists. Every pass rate quoted online comes from a training provider reporting its own students or from survey data, which is self-selected and not comparable across providers. Treat any specific percentage you see as marketing rather than as a statistic from PMI.

You need project management experience plus 35 hours of commercial training. The experience requirement depends on your education: 60 months with upper-secondary education, 48 months with an associate-level qualification, 36 months with a bachelor's degree, and 24 months with a degree from a program accredited by PMI's Global Accreditation Center. All experience must be leading projects, non-overlapping, and within the last 10 years.

No. PMI states directly that books and practice exams alone will not be accepted as eligible commercial training, so a question bank cannot satisfy the 35-hour requirement no matter how much of it you complete. You need a training course aligned to the content outline. The one genuine shortcut is holding an active CAPM certification, which waives the 35-hour documentation requirement entirely.

PMI prices the exam by membership status and region rather than publishing one global fee. In the United States as of August 2026 it is commonly listed at $405 for PMI members and $555 for non-members, with retakes inside your eligibility period at $275 and $375. Since membership runs about $139 a year plus a $10 application fee, joining first roughly breaks even on a single attempt.

You may sit the exam up to three times within your one-year eligibility period. If you use all three attempts without passing, you must wait one year from the date of your last attempt before reapplying, though you can pursue a different PMI certification during that year. If your eligibility year expires before you have used all three attempts, you simply reapply with no waiting period.

The PMP is demanding less because of technical difficulty than because most questions are situational: you are given a scenario with several defensible responses and asked for the best next action. Memorizing terminology is not enough. The July 2026 change raised the difficulty for anyone using older material, since Business Environment now carries roughly three times the questions it did and the exam leans further toward agile and hybrid contexts.

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